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Men
The hidden half of domestic violence
Marriage is good for men, women, children--and society
What you are about to read, if you
have the patience (and enough
critical reasonig left after being brainwashed for 40 years), is a
vitally important document for those interested in loving, caring
for and protecting their families.
While reading this excellent and informative document it is
important to keep in mind that the people who were soaked in this
ideology in the 1960's are currently judges, lawyers, journalists,
broadcasters, writers, teachers and politicians. This is important
because it will go a long way to explaining to you why the family is
disintegrating and why institutional hatred of men is so prevalent
in all official aspects of our society. Our social services
departments were almost entirely structured around the ideological
precepts revealed in these writings, for example.
The modern destruction and contempt for marriage has led to streets
filled with out of control and ferrel children who have no respect
for ANY authority. The principle teacher of that authority, the
father, has been discared from many, many relationships like an
empty packet of potato chips. Single mothers, offering only a female
perspective to the male and female ofspring are, often unwittingly,
failing to teach the normal male precepts to the kids and think that
discipline means screaming insults at, or hitting the child. (66% of
all child abuse is carried out by mothers) The result is huge
resentment in the children that finds its escape in vandalism,
street robbery, violence and drug taking.
All in all, the radical feminist social experiment has been a huge
disastor that is leading to the very real collapse of society and
the danger of much worse to come. The whole situation, unless
altered quickly, is in a self destructive and dangerous loop.
Fatherless girls are growing up with hostility towards men, often
taught to them by bitter mothers excluding fathers from their
childrens lives. They are reading magazines soaked in anti-male
sentiments and watching television depicting men as stupid,
unthinking fools incapable of doing anything wthout a women to guide
them and, they are learning the most unhealthy selfishness that
bodes ill for all of our society. This fuels their contempt for
males and spells ruin for their future relationships.
Boys, on the other hand are looking at the way their own fathers
have been treated, as well as watching the same TV programs, reading
the same magazines and feeling the same contempt from females and
they are losing all respect for women. Increasingly young men are
turning away from marriage as an option and are refusing to father
children at all. They see what the courts do to men in divorce and
they fear false accusations of rape and domestic abuse from bitter
ex partners. They also know that the law offers no protection to
males and that women are rarely jailed for the same offences as
them, or for the same amount of time. This has led to a whole
generation of male children feeling disenfranchised and excluded but
unable to articulate why. The results can be seen in our pubs and
clubs every friday and saturday night and in the increse in violent,
frustration fuelled, crime plaguing all our lives.
Everywhere we look we can see children that are confused, disturbed,
angry and frightened, yet left wing politicians keep repeating the
mantra that "the interests of the child must come first." We know
that what they mean by that phrase really is, "The interests of
radical feminism must come first" and it is that blind dogma that is
ruining our land and pouring misery onto our children and our
families.
This is why we are fighting back and why there must be, NO MORE
SILENCE.
Help us to stop this rot before it destroys all we love and hold
dear. Say no to Margaret Hoge, Harriet Harman, Germain Greer, the
BBC and all of the rest of these extreme Marxist-feminist, loonies
ruining our lives and loves by the teaching of a failed, outdated
philosophy born in Russia and abandoned there when it almost led to
the destruction of their socialist society. It was exported here to
the UK via America in the 1960's and has been poisoning our families
ever since.
George Rolph
No More Silence.
----- Original Message -----
From: George Rolph
To: breakfastplanning@bbc.co.uk
Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2004 4:37 AM
Subject: Marriage is good for men, women, children--and society
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/bg1662.cfm
Why Congress Should Ignore Radical Feminist Opposition to Marriage
by Patrick F. Fagan, Robert E. Rector, and Lauren R. Noyes
Backgrounder #1662
June 16, 2003 | Executive Summary | |
Marriage is good for men, women, children--and society. Because of
this simple fact, President George W. Bush has proposed a new pilot
program to promote healthy marriage. Despite demonstrated evidence
in every major social policy area of the need to rebuild a strong
and healthy culture of marriage, President Bush's new marriage
initiative is still opposed by the extreme wing of feminism that
sees no good in marriage or in unity between men and women, and
between mothers and fathers.
Moderate, mainstream feminists have long rejected this animus
against marriage; the vast majority of such feminists either are
married or intend to marry. Mainstream feminists are focused on a
worthy concern: removing obstacles to the advancement of women in
all walks of life.
Radical feminists, however, while embracing this mainstream goal--
even hiding behind it--go much further: They seek to undermine the
nuclear family of married father, mother, and children, which they
label the "patriarchal family." As feminist leader Betty Friedan has
warned, this anti-marriage agenda places radical feminists
profoundly at odds with the family aspirations of mainstream
feminists and most other American women.
Although radical feminists often claim that their opposition to the
President's healthy marriage initiative is a matter of efficiency or
program details, it is in fact rooted in a long-term philosophical
hostility to the institution of marriage itself. The Washington Post
underscored this point in an April 2002 editorial, stating that the
unwarranted animosity to the President's policy grew out
of "reflexive hostility" and the "tired ideology" of
"the feminist
left."2 Decision-makers in Congress should not allow the badly
needed initiative to strengthen healthy marriage to be blocked by
organizations, such as the NOW Legal Defense Fund, that are still
wedded to the "tired ideology" of the radical feminist past.
The Washington Post editorial found "something puzzling about the
reflexive hostility" to the President's proposal. This paper
unravels much of this puzzle by reviewing major statements made by
radical feminist leaders about marriage over the past three decades.
Congress should review these radical feminist views on marriage,
reject their influence, and uphold legislation that seeks to
increase stable, healthy marriage--a better solution for men and
women who are parents of children. Congress should never forget that
it is children who suffer most when an anti-marriage agenda triumphs.
THE EMERGENCE OF RADICAL FEMINISIM
In its initial stages, modern American feminism was not hostile to
marriage. True, in her magnum opus, The Feminine Mystique, Betty
Friedan did describe the traditional homes where wives were not
employed as "comfortable concentration camps."3 But Friedan's
criticism was focused primarily on the role of the non-employed
housewife. Her goal seems to have been to increase the employment of
wives and mothers rather than to attack marriage itself. Thus,
Friedan's criticism of marriage was limited; she never called on
women to abandon the institution.
However, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a new wave of radical
feminism emerged that quickly moved beyond the positions espoused by
Friedan and others. This new feminism was overtly hostile to the
institution of marriage itself. Among the key figures in this new,
more radical feminism were:
Kate Millett, who wrote the 1969 best-seller, Sexual Politics;
Germaine Greer, author of The Female Eunuch (1970), an Australian
who was educated at Cambridge, England, and taught at the University
of Warwick in the United Kingdom and the University of Tulsa in the
United States;
Marilyn French, Harvard fellow, best-known for her 1977 novel, The
Women's Room;
Jessie Bernard, author of The Future of Marriage (1972) and
influential Pennsylvania State University sociologist
who "converted" to radical feminism toward the end of her academic
career and in whose name the American Sociological Association gives
an annual award for feminist sociology; and
Shulamith Firestone, author of The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for
Feminist Revolution (1970) and founder of Radical Women, the first
feminist collective.
In the late 1960s, attacks against marriage mounted swiftly, one
upon the other. In 1968, radical feminists Beverly Jones and Judith
Brown wrote the influential pamphlet "Toward a Female Liberation
Movement." It proclaimed: "The married woman knows that love is, at
its best, an inadequate reward for her unnecessary and bizarre
heritage of oppression." 4 In 1969, radical feminist Marlene Dixon,
a sociology professor at the University of Chicago, declared: "The
institution of marriage is the chief vehicle for the perpetuation of
the oppression of women; it is through the role of wife that the
subjugation of women is maintained. In a very real way the role of
wife has been the genesis of women's rebellion throughout history."5
Also in 1969, Kate Millett declared in Sexual Politics that
in "contemporary patriarchies...[wives'] chattel status continues in
their loss of name, their obligation to adopt the husband's
domicile, and the general legal assumption that marriage involves an
exchange of the female's domestic service and [sexual] consortium in
return for financial support."6 Millett argued that the impetus of
the sexual revolution had the potential to collapse antiquated
patriarchal systems, including the institution of marriage, thereby
creating "a world we can bear out of the desert we inhabit."7 In
Millett's view, a dismantled patriarchy--resulting from the
destruction of traditional marriage--would generate the downfall of
the nuclear family, a goal she called "revolutionary or utopian."8
Millett suggested another alternative: that "marriage might be
replaced by voluntary association, if such is desired."9 The
influence of Millet and others can be seen in the subsequent rise of
cohabitation.10 In either case, Millett argued that the complete
destruction of marriage and the natural family is necessary to
produce an ideal society.11
The Feminists, an organization formed in the late 1960s, whose
leaders included authors Pamela Kearon and Barbara Mehrhof, became
well-known for its hostility toward marriage. In 1969, The Feminists
declared that "Marriage and the family must be eliminated"12 and
implemented a marriage quota when establishing membership guidelines
for itself. The Feminists declared:
Because THE FEMINISTS consider the institution of marriage
inherently inequitable...and (b) Because we consider this
institution a primary formalization of the persecution of women, and
(c) Because we consider the rejection of this institution both in
theory and in practice a primary mark of the radical feminist, WE
HAVE A MEMBERSHIP QUOTA: THAT NO MORE THAN ONE-THIRD OF OUR
MEMBERSHIP CAN BE PARTICIPANTS IN EITHER A FORMAL (WITH LEGAL
CONTRACT) OR INFORMAL (E.G., LIVING WITH A MAN) INSTANCE OF THE
INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE.13
In 1970, radical feminist intellectual Shulamith Firestone, co-
founder of the radical feminist group The Redstockings, proclaimed
in The Dialectic of Sex that "The institution [of marriage]
consistently proves itself unsatisfactory--even rotten.... The
family is...directly connected to--is even the cause of--the ills of
the larger society."14
Sheila Cronan, a member of The Redstockings, in her 1970
essay "Marriage," declared: "It became increasingly clear to us
that
the institution of marriage `protects' women in the same way that
the institution of slavery was said to `protect' blacks--that is,
that the word `protection' in this case is simply a euphemism for
oppression,"15 and proclaimed that "marriage is a form of
slavery."16 She concluded: "Since marriage constitutes slavery for
women, it is clear that the Women's Movement must concentrate on
attacking this institution. Freedom for women cannot be won without
the abolition of marriage."17
In 1970, leading feminist author Robin Morgan referred to the
institution of marriage as "A slavery-like practice. We can't
destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy
marriage."18 Morgan went on to become an editor at Ms. Magazine.
In 1971, Germaine Greer, scholar and lecturer at the University of
Warwick, England, argued further in The Female Eunuch: "If women are
to effect a significant amelioration in their condition it seems
obvious that they must refuse to marry."19 She asserted:
The plight of mothers is more desperate than that of other women,
and the more numerous the children the more hopeless the situation
seems to be.... Most women...would shrink at the notion of leaving
husband and children, but this is precisely the case in which
brutally clear rethinking must be undertaken.20
Having argued that ordinary women should leave their families, Greer
called for the establishment of "rambling organic structure[s]" that
would "have the advantage of being an unbreakable home in that it
did not rest on the frail shoulders of two bewildered individuals
trying to apply a contradictory blueprint."21 In short, Greer
encouraged women not to marry, advocated that those already married
leave their families, and proclaimed that transitory and free-form
relationships should replace intact, two-parent homes. (Regrettably,
a substantial transformation like that espoused by Greer has
occurred, especially within low-income communities over the past
three decades; this replacement of stable, two-parent homes with
transient fragmented relationships has proved overwhelmingly
detrimental to children, women, and men.)22
Minnesota radical feminists Helen Sullinger and Nancy Lehmann also
released a manifesto, the "Declaration on Feminism," in 1971 that
vowed hostility toward marriage and a determination to destroy it:
Marriage has existed for the benefit of men and has been a legally
sanctioned method of control over women.... Male society has sold us
the idea of marriage.... Now we know it is the institution that has
failed us and we must work to destroy it.... The end of the
institution of marriage is a necessary condition for the liberation
of women. Therefore, it is important for us to encourage women to
leave their husbands and not to live individually with men.23
In 1972, in a highly influential book entitled The Future of
Marriage, sociologist Jessie Bernard of Pennsylvania State
University wrote about the "destructive nature" of marriage for
women, arguing that marriage generated "poor mental and emotional
health" for women when compared to unmarried women or married
men.24 "Being a housewife," Bernard asserted, "makes women
sick."25
Bernard, however, had difficulty explaining why, given the
supposedly destructive nature of marriage, married women
consistently reported they were happier than were unmarried women.
To resolve this paradox, she further asserted that society as a
whole warped the minds of women:
To be happy in a relationship which imposes so many impediments on
her, as traditional marriage does, women must be slightly mentally
ill. Women accustomed to expressing themselves freely could not be
happy in such a relationship.... [W]e therefore "deform" the minds
of girls, as traditional Chinese used to deform their feet, in order
to shape them for happiness in marriage. It may therefore be that
married women say they are happy because they are sick.26
Bernard also asserted that raising children reduced adult
happiness.27 She envisioned a future in which marriage would
increasingly be childless and would involve an array of "free
wheeling" and transitory relationships.28
In 1974, the outcry grew still harsher. Ti-Grace Atkinson, a member
of The Feminists and author of Amazon Odyssey, called married
women "hostages."29 Atkinson concluded:
The price of clinging to the enemy [a man] is your life. To enter
into a relationship with a man who has divested himself as
completely and publicly from the male role as much as possible would
still be a risk. But to relate to a man who has done any less is
suicide.... I, personally, have taken the position that I will not
appear with any man publicly, where it could possibly be interpreted
that we were friends.30
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s: radical Feminism Continues to Decry
Marriage
Feminism's shrill animosity toward the married family continued
beyond the 1970s. In 1981, radical feminist author Vivian Gornick, a
tenured professor at the University of Arizona, proclaimed
that "Being a housewife is an illegitimate profession.... The choice
to serve and be protected and plan towards being a family-maker is a
choice that shouldn't be. The heart of radical feminism is to change
that."31
Some influential feminists asserted that marriage was akin to
prostitution. In 1983, radical feminist author Andrea Dworkin
declared, "Like prostitution, marriage is an institution that is
extremely oppressive and dangerous for women."32 In 1991, Catherine
MacKinnon, a professor of law at both the University of Michigan Law
School and the University of Chicago Law School, added, "Feminism
stresses the indistinguishability of prostitution, marriage, and
sexual harassment."33
In 1990, the organization Radical Women issued a group manifesto
affirming that the traditional family was "founded on the open or
concealed domestic slavery of the wife."34 The manifesto celebrated
the growth of single-parent families and serial cohabitation in low-
income communities as a positive step toward the liberation of
women.35
In her 1996 book In the Name of the Family: Rethinking Family Values
in the Postmodern Age, Judith Stacey, Professor of Gender Studies
and Sociology at the University of Southern California, consigned
traditional marriage to the dustbin of history.36 Stacey contended
that "Inequity and coercion...always lay at the vortex of that
supposedly voluntary `compassionate marriage' of the traditional
nuclear family."37 She welcomed the fact that traditional married-
couple families (which she terms "The Family") are being replaced by
single-mother families (which she terms the postmodern "family of
woman"):
Perhaps the postmodern "family of woman" will take the lead in
burying The Family at long last. The [married nuclear] Family is a
concept derived from faulty theoretical premises and an
imperialistic logic, which even at its height never served the best
interests of women, their children, or even many men.... The
[nuclear married] family is dead. Long live our families!38
Stacey urged policymakers to abandon their concern with restoring
marital commitment between mothers and fathers and instead "move
forward toward the postmodern family regime," characterized by
single parenthood and transitory relationships.39
In 1996, Claudia Card, professor of Philosophy at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, continued the attack:
The legal rights of access that married partners have to each
other's persons, property, and lives makes it all but impossible for
a spouse to defend herself (or himself), or to be protected against
torture, rape, battery, stalking, mayhem, or murder by the other
spouse.... Legal marriage thus enlists state support for conditions
conducive to murder and mayhem.40
Other radical feminists suggested that a culture of self-sufficiency
and high turnover in intimate relationships is the key to
independence and protection from hostile home life. Activist Fran
Peavey, in a 1997 Harvard article ironically titled "A Celebration
of Love and Commitment," suggested that "Instead of getting married
for life, men and women (in whatever combination suits their sexual
orientation) should sign up for a seven-year hitch. If they want to
reenlist for another seven, they may, but after that, the marriage
is over."41 Also in 1997, radical feminist author Ashton Applewhite,
in her book Cutting Loose--Why Women Who End Their Marriages Do So
Well proclaimed: "Women who end their marriages are far better off
afterward."42
Another feminist widely read during the 1990s was Barbara
Ehrenreich, a former columnist with Time magazine who now writes for
The Nation.43 Throughout her work, Ehrenreich extols single
parenthood and disparages marriage. Divorce, she argues,
produces "no lasting psychological damage" for children. What
America needs is not fewer divorces but more "good divorces."44
Rather than seeking to strengthen marriage, policymakers "should
concentrate on improving the quality of divorce."45 In general,
Ehrenreich concludes that single parenthood presents no problems
that cannot be solved by much larger government subsidies to single
parents.46
Ehrenreich writes enthusiastically about efforts to move beyond the
narrow limits of the nuclear married family toward more rational
forms of human relationship:
There is a long and honorable tradition of "anti-family" thought.
The French philosopher Charles Fourier taught that the family was a
barrier to human progress; early feminists saw a degrading parallel
between marriage and prostitution. More recently, the renowned
British anthropologist Edmund Leach stated, "far from being the
basis of the good society, the family with its narrow privacy and
tawdry secrets, is the source of all discontents."47
While Ehrenreich recognizes that men and women are inevitably drawn
to one another, she believes male-female relationships should be ad
hoc, provisional, and transitory. She particularly disparages the
idea of long-term marital commitment between fathers and mothers. In
the future, children will be raised increasingly by communal groups
of adults.48 These children apparently will fare far better than
those raised within the tight constraints of the nuclear married
family "with its deep impacted tensions."49
College Texts: Mainstreaming the anti-marriage message
As their influence grew over three decades, radical feminists'
sentiments increasingly found their way into college textbooks and
whole college courses on feminist studies, consistently expressing
opposition to the natural family and to marriage. Over the years,
these writings have exercised considerable detrimental influence on
the intellectual formation of millions of college students, not only
in many overtly hostile feminist studies courses, but even in the
more mainstream family studies courses.50
Many current college textbooks on the family rely heavily on
sociologist Jessie Bernard's erroneous arguments, now long
contradicted by subsequent research, that marriage has harmful
effects on women's mental health. For instance, in her textbook
Changing Families, Judy Root Aulette states: "Bernard's
investigation showed that the psychological costs of marriage were
great for women."51
In another text, professors Randall Collins and Scott Coltrane (then
both at the Department of Sociology, University of California,
Riverside), assert: "We do know, for instance, that marriage has an
adverse effect on women's mental health."52 In another text, authors
Maxine Baca Zinn and D. Stanley Eitzen, imitating Jessie Bernard,
explain away the enduring paradox that married women are more likely
to report they are happy than are un-married women: "If marriage is
so difficult for wives, why do the majority surveyed judge
themselves as happy?... [The reason] is that happiness is
interpreted by wives in terms of conformity. Since they are
conforming to society's expectations, this must be happiness."53
THE RADICAL FEMINIST VISION: MAN'S WAR AGAINST WOMAN
Many radical feminist novelists have carried the same message into
popular literature. Marilyn French, popular radical feminist
novelist54 and prominent social critic,55 is one such writer with
wide influence. French's writing, both fiction and non-fiction, is
characteristic of more recent radical feminism that moves beyond
hostility to the institution of marriage toward hostility to males
in general.
In her 1992 landmark work of social criticism, The War Against
Women, French declares that, "In personal and public life, in
kitchen, bedroom and halls of parliament, men wage unremitting war
against women."56 In French's view, the "war against women" is
quite
simply a war of men against women. Across all institutions, the
attitudes of men toward women are characterized by hostility,
domination, violence, and exploitation.
According to French, male oppression of females is often most
pronounced in the institution where men and women live in intimate
contact: the married family.
The family is the primary site of female subjection, which is
achieved largely through sexuality: women are indoctrinated into
their supposed "natural state" by male control of their sexuality in
the family.57
...Men expect women to perform the most important of all human tasks
[child-bearing] with no reward, without much help, and with almost
no consideration.58
In French's view, women are the natural prey of male predators who
oppress them economically, mentally, and physically. Human
sexuality, marriage, and family life are permeated by violence and
aggression.
All women learn in childhood that women as a sex are men's prey;
many also learn that the men who supposedly cherish them are the
worst offenders. They learn that "love" is about power and they are
the powerless....59
Male sexual aggression is endemic, if any sex act against a person's
will were considered rape, the majority of men would be rapists.60
My own informal survey of adult women suggests that very few reach
the age of twenty-one without suffering some form of male predation--
incest, molestation, rape or attempted rape, beatings, and sometimes
torture or imprisonment.61
For French, the fate of women in the world is bleak. Indeed, in her
view, the well-being of women has been steadily declining since the
Neolithic age.
For women, it has been downhill ever since [the stone age].... Women
not only did not "progress" but have been increasingly disempowered,
degraded, and subjugated. This tendency accelerated over the last
four centuries, when men, mainly in the West, exploded in a frenzy
of domination, trying to expand and tighten their control of nature
and those associated with nature--people of color and women.62
French's vision of the hostility of men toward women verges on the
apocalyptic. "Humans," she states, "are the only species in which
one sex consistently preys upon the other."63 She believes
that "men's need to dominate women may be based in their own sense
of marginality or emptiness."64
Whatever the root causes, according to French, men's violent
treatment, exploitation, and domination of women is so ubiquitous
and extreme that it appears to threaten the survival of the species.
It cannot be an accident that everywhere on the globe one sex harms
the other so massively that one questions the sanity of those waging
the campaign: can a species survive when half of it systematically
preys on the other?65
Some women today believe that men are well on their way to
exterminating women from the world through violent behavior and
oppressive policies.66
Marilyn French's views should not be lightly dismissed as the rants
of a lone extremist. Her book drew lavish praise from no less than
feminist doyenne Gloria Steinem, who declared, "If you could read
only one book about what's wrong with this country, THE WAR AGAINST
WOMEN is it."67
The views of radical feminists help to explain the shrillness of the
opposition to President Bush's policy to promote healthy marriage.
Anyone who believes that marriage is harmful to the emotional health
of women, that men and women are locked in a predator-prey
relationship, or that marriage is a mechanism for the economic
exploitation of women will certainly regard any social policy to
promote healthy marriage with the utmost alarm. Though radical
feminist views are not widely shared within our society, they do
heavily influence feminist interest groups, which in turn influence
Congress.
Moderate Feminists react to radical views
The views of radical feminism have become so extreme that more
moderate feminists have felt compelled to react against them. In
1981, Betty Friedan distanced herself from the feminist movement she
helped create, declaring:
The women's movement is being blamed, above all, for the destruction
of the family.... Can we [feminists] keep on shrugging all this off
as enemy propaganda--"their problem, not ours?" I think we must at
least admit and begin openly to discuss feminist denial of the
importance of family, of women's own needs to give and get love and
nurture, tender loving care.68
Departing from her previous main argument, Friedan also criticized
radical feminists' hostility toward housewives and mothers:
Our [feminists'] failure was our blind spot about the family. It was
our own extreme of reaction against that wife-mother role: that
devotional dependence on men and nurture of children and housewife
service which has been and still is the source of power and status
and identity, purpose and self worth and economic security for so
many women.... And not only for the 49 percent [of women] who are
still housewives. Most of the other 51 percent still don't get as
much sense of worth, status, power or economic security from the
jobs they now have as they get, or think they could get, or still
wish they could get, from being someone's wife or mother.69
THE REALITY: MARRIAGE IS GOOD FOR WOMEN, CHILDREN, AND MEN
For decades, radical feminists depicted marriage as an oppressive
institution that was injurious to women and children. In reality,
facts show exactly the opposite: In general, marriage has profoundly
beneficial effects on women, children, and men.
Foremost is the positive impact of marriage in alleviating poverty
among mothers and children. On average, a mother who gives birth and
raises a child outside of marriage is seven times more likely to
live in poverty than is a mother who raises her children within a
stable married family.70 Over 80 percent of long-term child poverty
in the United States (where a child is poor for more than half of
his or her life) occurs in never-married or broken households.71
Moreover, the economic benefits of marriage are not limited to the
middle class; some 70 percent of never-married mothers would be able
to escape poverty if they were married to the father of their
children.72
The erosion of marriage is also a principal factor behind the growth
of the current welfare state. A child born and raised outside
marriage is six times more likely to receive welfare aid than is a
child raised in an intact, married family. Each year, federal and
state governments spend over $200 billion on means-tested aid for
low-income families with children through programs such as Temporary
Assistance to Needy Families, food stamps, public housing, the
earned income tax credit, and Medicaid. Of this total, some 75
percent ($150 billion) goes to single-parent families.73
Marriage has profound positive effects on the well-being of
children. Children raised by single mothers are 14 times more likely
to suffer serious physical abuse than children raised in intact,
married families. Children raised in single-parent homes are much
more likely to be depressed and to have developmental, behavioral,
and emotional problems; such children are more likely to fail in
school, use drugs, and engage in early sexual activity. They are
also more likely to become involved in crime and to end up in jail
as adults.74
While radical feminists condemn marriage as an institution that
foments domestic violence against women, in fact, the opposite is
true. Domestic violence is most common in the transitory, free-form,
cohabitational relationships that feminists have long celebrated as
replacements for traditional marriage. Specifically, never-married
mothers are more than twice as likely to suffer from domestic
violence than mothers who are or have been married.
Similarly, contrary to the claims of Jessie Bernard, marriage
improves rather than harms the mental well-being of women. Linda
Waite of the University of Chicago is one of the world's premier
family sociologists. She and Maggie Gallagher, critiquing Jessie
Bernard's pivotal feminist work on marriage and mental health, point
out that "when Bernard compared married and single women's mental
health, she was, to a certain extent, contrasting apples and
oranges: married mothers with childless singles."75 Contrary to what
Jessie Bernard claimed, research indicates that marriage actually
protects women from depression, not adds to it.76 Even when one
controls for the hypothesis that those inclined to be happy are
those who marry, it is shown that marriage leads to an increase in
well-being for both young men and women77 and that this difference
only increases with age.78 Further, after controlling for race,
education, family structure, income, and living arrangements,
married people--with or without children, male or female--are less
depressed and emotionally healthier than singles.79
One can summarize the multiple fields of research that have
investigated the effects of marriage and say that for all concerned--
men, women, and children, as well as communities at large--marriage
leads to:80
Greater health and longevity;
Greater mental health;
More happiness;
More education;
More income;
Less abuse of adult women;
Less abuse, including less sexual abuse, of boys and girls;
Less poverty;
Less crime;
Less addiction;
Less depression and anxiety; and
Less violence and abuse.
A Shift in Dialogue: Prominent Liberals Begin to Articulate Support
for Marriage
During the 1990s, after decades of feminist abuse, the reputation of
marriage began a comeback. Increasingly, scientific evidence
demonstrated the importance of healthy marriage to the well-being of
children, women, and men. As the scientific evidence in support of
marriage grew, prominent liberals began to speak of the need to
strengthen the institution. Foremost among these was former
President Bill Clinton.
During his first term in office, President Clinton repeatedly spoke
of the importance of marriage and the link between the erosion of
the family and a host of social pathologies such as crime, drug
abuse, and school failure. For example, in a 1993 national
television interview, Clinton declared: "It's important for me to
speak out about the rising wave of crime and violence, how it is
tied to the breakdown of the family, the rise in out of wedlock
births."81 A few months later, in his January 1994 State of the
Union address, President Clinton forcefully reiterated this point:
The American people have got to want to change from within if we're
going to bring back work and family and community. We cannot renew
our country when, within a decade, more than half of the children
will be born into families where there has been no marriage. We
cannot renew this country when 13-year-old boys get semi-automatic
weapons to shoot 9-year-olds for kicks. We can't renew our country
when children are having children and the fathers walk away as if
the kids don't amount to anything.82
President Clinton's Domestic Policy Adviser, Professor William
Galston, had much to do with shaping the debate within the Clinton
White House. As co-author of "Why Marriage Matters: Twenty-One
Conclusions from the Social Sciences," Galston stated: "Marriage is
an important social good, associated with an impressively broad
array of positive outcomes for children and adults alike.... [W]
hether American Society succeeds or fails in building a healthy
marriage culture is clearly a matter of legitimate public concern."83
In remarks at the National Summit on Fatherhood in 2000, former Vice
President Al Gore proclaimed, "We need to be a society that lifts up
the institution of marriage."84 Mr. Gore and his wife concurred with
the Statement of Principles of the Marriage Movement, which
declares:85
We believe that America must strengthen marriages and families....
Strong marriage and family make every one of life's benchmarks
infinitely richer.... Strong marriages are a vital component to
building strong families and raising healthy, happy, well-educated
children. Fighting together against the forces that undermine family
values, and creating a national culture that nurtures and encourages
marriage and good family life, must be at the heart of this great
nation's public policy.86
Will Marshall of the Progressive Policy Institute and Isabel
Sawhill, widely respected welfare and family expert at the Brookings
Institution, recently issued a paper entitled "Progressive Family
Policy for the 21st Century." Marshall and Sawhill repudiate "the
relativist myth that `alternative family forms' were the equal of
two-parent families," citing a growing body of evidence showing
that, in aggregate, children do best in married, two-parent
families. They argue: "A progressive family policy should encourage
and reinforce married, two-parent families because they are best for
children."87
PRESIDENT BUSH'S INITIATIVE TO PROMOTE HEALTHY MARRIAGE
Recognizing the widespread benefits of marriage, both for
individuals and for society, the federal welfare reform legislation
that was enacted in 1996 set forth clear goals to increase the
number of two-parent families and reduce out-of-wedlock
childbearing. Regrettably, however, in the years since this reform
legislation was passed, most states have done little to advance
these objectives directly.
Recognizing this shortcoming, President Bush has sought to meet
these original goals of welfare reform by proposing, as part of
welfare reauthorization, a new model program to promote healthy
marriage. The proposed program would seek to increase healthy
marriage by providing target couples with:
Accurate information on the value of marriage in the lives of
children, men, and women;
Marriage-skills education that will enable couples to reduce
conflict and to increase cooperation, leading to greater happiness
and permanence in their relationship; and
Experimental reductions in the current financial penalties against
marriage contained in all federal welfare programs.
All participation in the President's marriage program would be
voluntary. In general, the programs would focus on younger couples
before or around the time of the birth of a first child. The
initiative would utilize existing marriage-skills education programs
that have proven effective in decreasing conflict and increasing
happiness and stability among couples; these programs have also been
shown to be effective in reducing domestic violence.88 The pro-
marriage initiative would not merely seek to increase marriage rates
among target couples, but would also provide ongoing support to help
at-risk couples maintain healthy marriages over the long term.
The President proposes spending $300 million per year on his model
program. This sum represents only one cent to promote healthy
marriage for every five dollars the government currently spends to
subsidize single-parent families.
Radical Feminists Continue to Oppose Pro-Marriage Initiatives
Despite the reasonable and limited scope of the President's
proposal, it should come as no surprise that radical feminists view
it with great alarm. Denunciation of the very idea of promoting
healthy marriage has been widespread and shrill in the conventional
mode of radical feminists:
NOW President Kim Gandy declared: "I think promoting marriage as a
goal in and of itself is misguided."89 She added that "Finding a man-
-the [Bush] administration's approved ticket out of poverty--is
terrible public policy. Marrying women off to get them out of
poverty is not only backward, it is insulting to women."90
Leading feminist author Barbara Ehrenreich, who believed that the
1996 welfare reform was motivated by "racism and misogyny," was
particularly alarmed by the President's modest healthy marriage
proposal, declaring the idea a "lurid new low" in misogynist
hostility.91
Gwendolyn Mink, a professor of political science at the University
of California at Santa Cruz and prominent liberal expert on women
and poverty, has characterized marriage promotion as "a coercive act
by the government."92 In Mink's view, "The idea behind the marriage
proposal is that we should cure poor mothers' poverty by curbing
poor mothers' independence. Not only does this privatize social
policy, but also it does so in a way that erodes the rights of poor
mothers."93
Kate Kahan, executive director of Working for Equality and Economic
Liberation, testified before the Senate Finance Committee in
opposition to the President's proposal. She proclaimed: "Marriage
promotion will not help these women in crisis leave [welfare], it
will only serve as yet another barrier to leaving and that will not,
under any circumstances, solve the poverty they face."94
The Center for Women Policy Studies argues: "We do not believe that
the promotion of marriage as part of the social engineering...is an
appropriate public policy strategy--if our goal is truly to put a
dent in women's and children's poverty."95
Avis Jones-DeWeever, Study Director for Welfare and Poverty Research
at the Institute for Women's Policy Research, adds that "Getting the
government into the business of promoting marriage...does nothing to
address the real needs of low-income single mothers."96
Generally, radical feminists have attacked the Bush proposal not on
the grounds of opposition to marriage per se, but on the technical
grounds of efficiency or practicality. However, given the stridency
of the opposition, there can be little doubt it is rooted in the
habitual radical feminist hostility to marriage itself.
The Washington Post, for example, although it has reservations about
some details of the Bush proposal, also acknowledges that the
passionate opposition to the proposal is unreasonable and rooted in
radical ideology. In an April 5, 2000, editorial entitled "The
Left's Marriage Problem," the Post stated:
So there's something puzzling about the reflexive hostility among
some liberals to the not-so-shocking idea that for poor mothers,
getting married might in some cases do more good than harm. Why not
find out whether helping mothers--and fathers--tackle the
challenging task of getting and staying married could help families
find their way out of poverty?... It's wrong to suggest that any
marriage promotion is equivalent to pushing women into abusive
marriages. The Bush document specifically seeks to
encourage "healthy marriage," a qualifier inserted in recognition
that children in high-conflict marriages do not, in fact, do
better.... "Right now we really don't know what it takes to build
positive relationships among high-risk couples, and this is
something that does need new research," says Kristin Moore,
President of the nonpartisan research group Child Trends, who
believes that small state programs could yield useful models. What,
beyond tired ideology, is the argument against that?97
The Post is correct in lamenting the negative influence of
the "tired ideology" of the "feminist left" on this issue.
For over
three decades, the ideas and rhetoric of radical feminism have
played a significant role within certain segments of American
culture.
True, in recent years, the rhetoric of radical feminism has become
somewhat less shrill, and the number of feminists willing to
denounce marriage forthrightly has diminished. But the fundamental
themes and concepts of radical feminism have changed little.
Moreover, major feminist organizations, such as the NOW Legal
Defense Fund, that have been heavily influenced by radical feminist
thought enjoy considerable influence within Congress and are
spearheading the opposition to the President's healthy marriage
initiative.
But the radical feminist animosity to marriage is not widely shared
by any group within American society, rich or poor, black, Hispanic,
or white. It would be a tragedy for America's children and families
if the NOW Legal Defense Fund and similar groups, motivated by
radical feminist thought, were to succeed in their efforts to block
or cripple the President's healthy marriage proposal.
Conclusion
For more than three decades, radical feminists have attacked and
demeaned marriage. They have depicted marriage as an institution
that economically oppresses women and as a prison that generates
despair and mental illness for women trapped within it.
This ideological perspective stands in complete contrast to the
facts. Marriage, as an institution, has enormous economic benefits
for mothers and children. Stable marriage has substantial, positive,
emotional and psychological benefits for women, and it dramatically
improves the well-being of children.
Not surprisingly, the harsh anti-marriage views of radical feminists
have failed to gain broad public acceptance. The overwhelming
majority of Americans view marriage in a positive light. In all
socioeconomic classes, most men and women wish to become married and
hope for happiness and stability within marriage. But, despite
rejection by the broad public, the harsh anti-marriage views of
radical feminists have had an influence within feminist advocacy
groups, such as the NOW Legal Defense Fund, and these groups in turn
continue to enjoy significant influence on Capitol Hill.
Nevertheless, a broad consensus on the importance of marriage to
society has emerged and continues to grow. The 1996 welfare reform
act recognized that strengthening marriage should play a significant
future role in reducing poverty and welfare dependence and improving
child well-being. President Bush's proposal to create a model
program to promote healthy marriage builds on this foundation.
Feminist groups, predictably, oppose the President's marriage
initiative--often stridently. While this opposition is usually
framed in narrow technical terms, there can be no doubt that it is
rooted in what The Washington Post has called the "tired ideology"
of radical feminism. Lawmakers should not be swayed by this tired
ideology; instead, they should reaffirm the importance of healthy
marriage.
American children, in particular, need a culture of stable, healthy
marriage. The children of our poor need it most; they have
consistently suffered the greatest damage from the erosion of
marriage over the past 30 years. For the sake of all children, but
most especially for the children of the poor, Congress should join
with the President in the task of rebuilding a culture of stable,
healthy marriages.
--Patrick F. Fagan is William H. G. FitzGerald Research Fellow in
Family and Cultural Issues, Robert E. Rector is Senior Research
Fellow, and Lauren R. Noyes is Director of Research Projects in
Domestic Policy at The Heritage Foundation.
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1. The authors are deeply indebted to interns Darin Thacker and Anna
Shopen, who contributed substantially to this paper.
2. Editorial, "The Left's Marriage Problem," The Washington Post,
April 5, 2002, p. A22.
3. Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, Inc, 1963), p. 337.
4. Beverly Jones and Judith Brown, Toward a Female Liberation
Movement (Gainesville, Fl.: June 1968), p. 23.
5. Marlene Dixon, "Why Women's Liberation? Racism and Male
Supremacy," at edweb.tusd.k12.az.us/UHS/APUSH/2nd%20Sem/ Articles%
20Semester%202/8%20Dixon.htm - 7k.
6. Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (New York: Avon Books, 1969). pp.
34-35.
7. Ibid., p. 36.
8. Ibid., p. 35.
9. Ibid. Quotation from last sentence in original essay on which
chapter 2 of Sexual Politics is based, at
www.cwluherstory.com/CWLUArchive/millett.html.
10. The number of people cohabiting grew from 523,000 in 1970 to
4,236,000 in 1998. See U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population
Reports, Series P20-514, Marital Status and Living Arrangements,
March 1998 and earlier reports, at www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/p20-
514.pdf.
11. The deconstruction of marriage has certainly not produced an
ideal society. For example, contrary to feminist claims, it is worth
noting that marriage is the safest place for women. See Linda J.
Waite and Maggie Gallagher, The Case for Marriage: Why Married
People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially (New York:
Doubleday, 2000), pp. 150-160, and Patrick F. Fagan and Kirk A.
Johnson, Ph.D., "Marriage: The Safest Place for Women and Children,"
Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1535, April 10, 2002, pp. 1-4.
12. The Feminists, statement made on August 15, 1969, in Anne Koedt,
Ellen Levine, and Anita Rapone, eds., Radical Feminism (New York:
Quadrangle Books, 1973), p. 376.
13. The Feminists, statement made on August 8, 1969, in Koedt,
Levine, and Rapone, eds., Radical Feminism, p. 374; capitalization
and emphasis in original.
14. Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist
Revolution (New York: Morrow, 1970), p. 254.
15. Sheila Cronan, "Marriage," in Koedt, Levine, and Rapone, eds.,
Radical Feminism, p. 214.
16. Ibid., p. 216.
17. Ibid., p. 219.
18. Robin Morgan, Sisterhood Is Powerful (New York: Random House,
1970), p. 537.
19. Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971),
p. 317.
20. Ibid., p. 320.
21. Ibid., p. 233.
22. For a research description of just such chaos, see: Andrew
Cherlin and Paula Fromby, "A Closer Look at Changes in Children's
Living Arrangements in Low Income Families," Johns Hopkins
University Working Papers 02-01, February 2002.
23. Nancy Lehmann and Helen Sullinger, Declaration of Feminism,
1971, at www.spiritone.com/~law/hatequotes.html (September 20, 2002).
24. Jessie Bernard, The Future of Marriage (New York: World
Publishing, 1972), p. 12.
25. Ibid., p. 48.
26. Ibid., p. 51.
27. Ibid., p. 56.
28. Ibid., p. 271. A large body of earlier research, as well as
research conducted since Bernard's book was published, has shown
that married women fare better on average on most indicators of well-
being than do unmarried women. See Norval D. Glenn, "Closed Hearts,
Closed Minds: The Textbook Story of Marriage," Council of Families,
Institute for American Values, 1997, p. 6, at
www.americanvalues.org/html/a-closed_hearts__closed_minds_.html
(November 27, 2002). See also Waite and Gallagher, The Case for
Marriage, chapter 12, pp. 161-173.
29. Alice Echols, Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967-
1975 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press: 1989), p. 178.
30. Ti-Grace Atkinson, Amazon Odyssey (New York: Links Books, 1974),
pp. 90, 91.
31. Vivian Gornick in The Daily Illini, April 25, 1981.
32. Andrea Dworkin, "Feminism: An Agenda (1983)," in Letters >From
a
War Zone (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Lawrence Hill Books, 1993), p. 146.
33. Catharine MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and
Law (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), p. 59.
34. The Radical Women Manifesto: Socialist Feminist Theory, Program,
and Organizational Structure (Seattle, Wash.: Red Letter Press,
2001), p. 28.
35. Ibid, p. 29. For a picture of what is really happening to low-
income women and children, see Cherlin and Fromby, "A Closer Look at
Changes in Children's Living Arrangements in Low Income Families."
The data paint a picture that is far from liberation.
36. In some places, Stacey says she is "ambivalent" about the
decline of the traditional nuclear family based on heterosexual
marriage, but it is difficult to find positive comment about
traditional married-couple families in her writing. She is also
relentlessly opposed to efforts to promote healthy marriage. Even
when she makes remarks that are ostensibly pro-marriage, they
quickly transmute into something else. For example, she states
that "two compatible, responsible, committed, loving parents
generally can offer greater economic, emotional, physical,
intellectual and social resources to their children than can one
from a comparable cultural milieu. Of course, if two parents are
generally better than one, three or four might prove better yet."
She then discusses the need to promote not marriage between mothers
and fathers, but networks of "para-parents" to support single
mothers. See Judith Stacey, In the Name of the Family: Rethinking
Family Values in the Postmodern Age (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996), p.
80.
37. Ibid., p. 69.
38. Ibid., p. 51.
39. Ibid., p. 37.
40. Claudia Card, "Against Marriage and Motherhood," Hypatia, Vol.
11, No. 3 (Summer 1996), p. 8, at
www.indiana.edu/~iupress/journals/hypatia/hyp11-3.html (November 21,
2002).
41. Fran Peavey, "A Celebration of Love and Commitment," Radcliffe
Quarterly, Winter 1997, p. 18.
42. Ashton Applewhite, Cutting Loose--Why Women Who End Their
Marriages Do So Well (New York: Harper Perennial, 1997),
p. xv.
43. Writer and social commentator Barbara Ehrenreich has appeared in
a diverse range of national publications including Time, The New
York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, Ms., Esquire, The
Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, The Nation, The New Republic, Social
Policy, and Mirabella. She has also written the books Blood Rites:
Origins and History of the Passions of War; The Worst Years of Our
Lives: Irreverent Notes from The Decade of Greed; Fear of Falling:
The Inner Life of the Middle Class; The Snarling Citizen; The Hearts
of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment; The American
Health Empire; Witches, Midwives and Nurses; For Her Own Good; Re-
Making Love; The Mean Season: The Attack on Social Welfare; and a
novel, Kipper's Game. She has received numerous grants and
fellowships and awards, including a Ford Foundation Award, a
Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Sydney Hillman Award for Journalism.
Ehrenreich is an honorary co-chairperson of the Democratic
Socialists of America.
44. Barbara Ehrenreich, "In Defense of Splitting Up," Time, April 8,
1996.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid.
47. Barbara Ehrenreich, "Oh, Those Family Values," Time, July 18,
1994.
48. Barbara Ehrenreich, "Will Women Still Need Men?" Time, February
21, 2000.
49. Ehrenreich, "Oh, Those Family Values."
50. In 1997, Norval D. Glenn, a professor of sociology at the
University of Texas at Austin and national expert and researcher on
marriage, studied a sample of 20 college texts used in family
studies courses. Glenn found that a small minority of the texts he
reviewed were hostile to marriage and that the majority of these
texts avoided marriage and its benefits, thus giving a totally false
picture of marriage and the lives of married women. See Norval D.
Glenn, "Closed Hearts, Closed Minds: The Textbook Story of
Marriage," Council of Families, Institute for American Values, 1997,
at www.americanvalues.org/html/a-closed_hearts__closed_minds_.html
(November 27, 2002), and "College Texts on Marriage: No Happy
Endings," Christian Science Monitor, June 29, 1998, at
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1998/06/29/p11s1.html
(November 1,
2002).
51. Reported in Glenn, "Closed Hearts, Closed Minds: The Textbook
Story of Marriage," p. 6.
52. Ibid. , p. 7.
53. Ibid .
54. Her novels include The Women's Room (1977); The Bleeding Heart
(1980); Her Mother's Daughter (1987); Our Father (1993); and My
Summer with George (1996).
55. Shakespeare's Division of Experience (1981); Beyond Power: On
Men, Women, and Morals (1985); The War Against Women (1992); Women's
History of the World (2000).
56. Marilyn French, The War Against Women (New York: Ballantine
Books, 1992), p. 196.
57. Ibid. , p. 53.
58. Ibid. , p. 26.
59. Ibid., p. 196.
60. Ibid., p. 193.
61. Ibid., p. 195.
62. Ibid., pp. 9, 10.
63. Ibid., p. 18.
64. Ibid., p. 19.
65. Ibid., p. 18.
66. Ibid., p. 200.
67. Ibid., front cover.
68. Betty Friedan, The Second Stage (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1998), p. 10.
69. Ibid., p. 191.
70. Patrick F. Fagan, Robert E. Rector, Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D., and
America Peterson, The Positive Effects of Marriage: A Book of Charts
(Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation, April 2002).
71. Ibid.
72. Robert E. Rector, Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D., Patrick F. Fagan, and
Lauren R. Noyes, "Increasing Marriage Will Dramatically Reduce Child
Poverty," Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis Report No.
CDA03-06, May 20, 2003.
73. Fagan, Rector, Johnson, and Peterson, The Positive Effects of
Marriage: A Book of Charts.
74. Ibid.
75. Waite and Gallagher, The Case for Marriage, p. 165.
76. The authors are indebted to the work of Linda Waite and Maggie
Gallagher, especially chapters 5 and 12 in their book, The Case for
Marriage.
77. Allan V. Horowitz, Helene Raskin White, and Sandra Howell-
White, "Becoming Married and Mental Health: A Longitudinal Study of
a Cohort of Young Adults," Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol.
58 (1996), pp. 895-907.
78. John Mirkowsky, "Age and the Gender Gap in Depression," Journal
of Health and Social Behavior, Vol. 37 (1996), pp. 362-380.
79. Linda J. Waite and Mary Elizabeth Hughes, "At Risk on the Cusp
of Old Age: Living Arrangements and Functional Status Among Black,
White and Hispanic Adults," Journal of Gerontology, May 1999.
80. For key studies and reviews of the literature, see such
publications as Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, Growing Up with a
Single Parent (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994); Patrick
F. Fagan, "Rising Illegitimacy: America's Social Catastrophe,"
Heritage Foundation F.Y.I. No. 19, June 6, 1994; David Blankenhorn,
Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem (New
York: Harper Perennial, 1996); David Popenoe, Life Without Father
(New York: Free Press, 1996); Patrick F. Fagan, "The Effects of
Divorce on America," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1373, June
5, 2000; Waite and Gallagher, The Case for Marriage; William A.
Galston et al., "Why Marriage Matters: Twenty-One Conclusions from
the Social Sciences," Institute for American Values, New York, 2000;
and Fagan, Rector, Johnson, and Peterson, The Positive Effects of
Marriage: A Book of Charts.
81. Interview with Tom Brokaw, NBC Nightly News, December 3, 1993.
Similarly instructive is the following exchange, taken from an
interview on Meet the Press with Tim Russert and Tom Brokaw on
November 7, 1993: Mr. Russert: "Is the breakup of the traditional
family unit a national crisis?" The President: "Absolutely. It is
absolutely a crisis." Mr. Russert: "And what can you do about it as
President? The President: "I think that as President I have to do
two things. One is to speak about it and to focus the attention of
the Nation on it. I went to the University of North Carolina
recently and spoke to the 200th anniversary there of the university
and gave a major speech trying to deal with the combined impact of
the breakdown of the family and the rise in violence and the rise in
drugs." See National Archives, at
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/multidb.cgi.
82. President William Jefferson Clinton, "1994 State of the Union
Address" at www.thisnation.com/library/sotu/1994bc.html.
83. Galston et al., "Why Marriage Matters: Twenty-One Conclusions
from the Social Sciences," p. 6.
84. Scott Shepard, "Gore Outlines Reforms to Make Absent Fathers
More Responsible," Cox News, June 3, 2000, at
www.coxnews.com/2000/news/cox/060300_gore.html (December 9, 2002).
85. The Marriage Movement consists of a coalition of organizations
that joined to encourage and strengthen marriage. Its Statement of
Principles, issued in 2000, details the current "marriage crisis";
refutes arguments against marriage; defines marriage; explains the
importance of marriage and costs of divorce; describes several
ongoing pro-marriage movements; and outlines a call for action for
government entities, married couples, and others. See
www.marriagemovement.org/html/report.html (December 16, 2002).
86. Al and Tipper Gore, signed letter to "Supporters of The Marriage
Movement, c/o Institute for American Values" from the Gore Campaign
2000, July 1, 2000.
87. Will Marshall and Isabel Sawhill, "Progressive Family Policy in
the 21st Century," presented at the Maxwell Conference on "Public
Policy and the Family," Syracuse University, October 24-25, 2002,
pp. 2, 6, at www-cpr.maxwell.syr.edu/moynihan-
smeedingconference/marshall-sawhill.pdf.
88. Patrick F. Fagan, Robert W. Patterson, and Robert E.
Rector, "Marriage and Welfare Reform: The Overwhelming Evidence That
Marriage Education Works," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No.
1606, October 25, 2002, p. 7.
89. Brian Carnell, "NOW Elects New President," July 5, 2001, at
www.equityfeminism.com/discussion/fullthread$msgnum=398 (October 17,
2002).
90. Karen S. Peterson, "The President's Family Man; Wade Horn Is
Encouraging Welfare Moms to Wed; Not Everyone Says, `I Do, Too,'"
USA Today, July 30, 2002, p. 7.
91. Barbara Ehrenreich, preface in Randy Abelda and Ann Withorn,
Lost Ground (Cambridge: South End Press, 2002), pp. vii, viii.
92. Sarah Stewart Taylor, "Heated Debate on Welfare May Focus on
Marriage," Women's Enews, March 5, 2001, at
www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/467/context/archive
(December 13, 2002).
93. Bryn Mawr College, "Government Promotion, Support of Marriage to
Be Discussed at Confer
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